‘England supports Chile's independence. Isabel II of Spain has the city bombarded. The final shudder of the thwarted coloniser. In its turn the ground opens up. Earthquakes, floods, fires, cyclones and looting. This was to be the fate of this peace-loving people. And it did not end there.A cartoon satirising "Uncle Sam", driving a nail into Panama.. A mermaid watches over a ship. A bunch of seaweed, conjuring up streaming hair, floats in the troughs of the waves. Then different statues of mermaids.But when is there an end? The mermaids in the harbour have not ended their song. They are there, watching, listening, waiting.'Chris Marker, script for ... AValparaiso, in Rosalind Delmar, Joris Ivens: 50 years of filmmaking (London: BFI, 1979), p.96.